Closure
by SaraStar
Summary: Saracentric. "Though you're still with me, I've been alone all along." An old-fashioned Sara thriller, because I missed her and couldn't help myself. Hard to summarize the plot without giving too much away, so please just read the prologue.
1. Prologue

**A/N: **I've written this prologue a while back, but I didn't want to upload it until I had the plot of this story figured out more clearly. This is an old-fashioned Sara thriller, because I really missed her (luckily she'll be back!). Please read and review!****

Closure  
"Though you're still with me, I've been alone all along."

**Prologue**_****_

_Her eyes were fixed upon the road in front of her. All she saw was darkness, which was almost impenetrable because of the rain that was pouring down. Her windshield wipers were rushing their ways up and down, trying with all their might, and in vain, to keep away the rain from her view. She was so tired that the rapidly wiping of the wipers was nearly hypnotizing her. It had been a long day._

A child murder case, yet to be solved. Those were the worst, in her opinion. Somehow those kind of cases were impossible for her to let go without having put the bastard who did such a thing to an innocent child behind bars. Flashes of the desperate, tear-stained faces of the family appeared in her mind's eye again. Faces that looked at her, searching for answers for an explanation why this was done to their loved one, for closure. If it had been up to her she'd not have gone home at all, until they managed to give them this. But her supervisor Grissom had found her working at two in the night (seven hours past the end of her shift), the coffee machine for the CSIs plundered, trying to find something that would be enough to get a search warrant for their prime suspect, and had insisted that she go home. And if she didn't, he'd 'have to fire her for working too late.' Unwillingly, she had given in to his wish and gotten into her car to get home. Right now exhaustion, that hadn't been there at all when she had been working, was taking her over and the idea of crawling into her warm bed soon didn't sound too bad.

Suddenly, her eyes got sight of a car behind her. Its headlights were reflected into her rearview mirror. It was quite unusual that someone else was driving at this quiet road, especially in the middle of the night when it was raining cats and dogs. The car seemed to increase speed, as far as she could see it through the pouring rain. She figured the vehicle wanted to pass her, so she slowed down hers and steered to the right slightly. But the car didn't pass her. It remained driving behind her, still speeding up, because its lights shone through the rain into her rearview mirror more clearly now. Vaguely she heard the driver honk at her.

"What do you want from me?" she whispered under her breath, irritated. She glanced into the rearview mirror again, trying to get a look at the driver, but rain drops still hindered her sight.

The lights came even closer, until the car bumped firmly into hers. She was thrown forward, her head hitting the steering wheel. She cursed loudly, rubbing her forehead with one hand, while the other desperately tried to keep the car on the road.

She knew she was supposed to stop now, but somehow her intuition told her to get away from there. She was about to accelerate again, when the vehicle behind her once again crashed into hers; this time the shock was even harder.

"What the HELL?!" she screamed out.

She glanced into the rearview mirror once again. She heard the sound of the honk again, closer this time. Maybe it was best to pull over after all. Something wasn't quite right, that was for sure.

She slowly pushed down the brake, until her car came to a halt at the side of the road. She pulled her keys out of the ignition, but stayed in her seat. Not until now she realized her heart had started beating faster. She told herself to calm down. Whoever the person was, they might be hurt and needing her help. Judging by the turned off car lights the car behind her had stopped as well.  
Minutes passed by without anything happening. Without knowing if she did the right thing, she opened the car door and stepped outside.

"Oh, God," she said, as the pouring rain immediately soaked her. In vain she tried to block the rain drops by lifting her arms above her head. She narrowed her eyes trying to see something.

"Hello?"

There wasn't any kind of response. Carefully she began moving closer to the car. She could barely see anything in the darkness. If only she had had her faithful flashlight right now...

All of a sudden, two hands on her shoulders. Her heart skipped a beat and she nearly let out a cry. She tried to spin around, but the stranger held her in the same position so she couldn't see their face.

_Then a voice close to her ear. "Honey, I've been looking everywhere for you."_

She felt her stomach turn in fear. Blindly she grabbed to her hip where she normally carried her gun. A wave of despair went through her as her hand felt nothing. She left it in her car, in the back seat.

"Let go of me!" She had to improvise. She couldn't help her voice to slide out to a high note.

The stranger, a guy judging by his voice, tightened the grip on her shoulders. "Sssh, honey. Be silent."

Honey. He kept on calling her honey. Her brain worked at high speed. Apparently to him she wasn't a stranger. Did she have to play along with him?

"Will you let go of me please? You're hurting me," she said softly, as calmly as she could with her heart beating its way out of her chest.

The hands loosened slightly and she immediately took her chance. She struggled herself free by elbowing him hard in the chest, then rushed past him to her car. But in less than a second he was next to her again, wrapping an arm around her neck, pulling her close to him.

"Why are you trying to walk away, hon? Don't you remember me?"

His breath in her neck, a shiver went through her spine. She was out of ideas what to do to escape. He held her in a tight grip she wasn't able to free herself from. And now he began pushing her in the direction of his car. With all of the strength she had inside of her she tried to stay where she stood, but he was stronger. Pleading was the only solution she saw at the moment.

"Please, why are you doing this? You don't want to do this," she said in a shaky voice. "I w-work in Law Enforcement," she added, hoping this would scare him off somehow.

It didn't.

"I know, sweetie. I know where you work. In fact, I believe I know everything about you."  



	2. Chapter One

**A/N: **Here is the first chapter. Thanks very much for the reviews, they make me happy and encourage me to go on. I hope you'll enjoy this next piece as well; I know everything must seem confusing still, but that's done on purpose, everything will be revealed and cleared up later on in the story! ****

Closure  
"Though you're still with me, I've been alone all along." ****

Chapter One

Sara's eyes fluttered open. Her head was pressed against the window of a car, which was, judging by the slight thrilling of the window, driving at fast speed. She lifted it quickly, but immediately felt pain flooding through it. She was nauseous. Her clothes felt cold and wet around her body.

She narrowed her eyes, trying to get a less blurry look on where she was. When the pain in her head had become a little less, she turned it carefully from right to left. She was sitting in the backseat of a car, neatly buckled up. Then she turned her head upwards and her eyes met two other, unfamiliar eyes in the rear-view mirror. She gasped softly with shock.

"Sweetheart, you're awake at last. Did you sleep well?" he asked her, not taking his eyes off of her via the mirror for a second.

Sara didn't know what to say. She tried to dig into her mind who this person was and why she was in his car, but there was a strange blur. The last thing she remembered was Grissom sending her home from work. How long ago was that?

Her eyes quickly glanced at the digital clock on the car's dashboard. It said 03:17 am. Did Grissom ask someone to drive her home? She couldn't just have used her own car?

"Who---uhm… I'm sorry, but I'm a little confused…" she began. "Are you… Who are you?"

The guy moved his eyes to the mirror again to face her. He smiled. "You know who I am. Don't be playing with me."

Sara felt her heart's speed increasing in her chest. Something wasn't right. This guy didn't look like a police officer who could've been told to take her home. And besides, they weren't driving through Las Vegas anymore.

"Where are we going?" she tried, sounding a lot braver than she actually felt.

Again he flashed her his smile. It gave her the shivers. "We're going home. Where you belong."

"H-Home?"

"Yes, honey. Home. Our home," he replied.

The nausea returned. This definitely wasn't right. Her stomach was making strange turns and she gagged. Her head was aching badly. _Focus_, she told herself, _focus, Sara_. She had to find a way to get out of here.

Her phone. Did she have her phone with her? Very carefully, out of sight for the stranger, she moved her hand over her soaked jeans, towards her pocket. A wave of relief went through her when she felt the familiar curve of her small portable.

As softly as possible, she reached into the pocket, pulling the little object out of it. It gave a small rushing sound, which was fortunately covered up by the thick raindrops that were rattling on the roof of the car.

Quickly, her slightly trembling fingers searched for the right buttons._ 9_… _1_…

"What are you doing?!"

The tires of the car screeched over the wet asphalt as the vehicle came to a sudden halt. Sara was dragged forwards by the enormous braking power and the cell phone slipped out of her hands, landing on the car floor with a soft thud.

"I don't think you'll be needing that anymore," the guy said, as he turned around in the driver's seat, reached over and grabbed the phone from the floor. "You don't need to talk to anyone else except me."

He had risen his voice; before this, he had sounded nicely, almost lovingly. Sara's head spun with confusion. The pain in her head was sickening, she gagged once again. She couldn't fight this nausea much longer.

"I… I'm not feeling well…" she muttered, closing her eyes against the pain. "Will you let me out, please? Car-sickness…" It was the best she could think of.

"Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry. You've always been car-sick, I forgot about that…" His voice sounded worried. Caring. She had never been car-sick, Sara had no idea what he was talking about. But she didn't understand anything of this situation.

At the moment she didn't really care, though. All she longed for was fresh air and for that unbearable headache to end. Vaguely she heard the guy stepping out of the driver's seat, the door slamming, footsteps around the car, and then the door next to her was opened. She stumbled out of the car and simultaneously felt another wave of sickness. She bent over, retched and vomited the contents of her dinner on the ground. She kept on retching and gasped for air desperately.

"Are you okay, honey?" She felt his hands on her shoulders, touching her softly. The fresh air and the loss of the nausea caused her to come back to her senses. She shrugged the hands off of her, jumped up and ran.

She had only run a few meters as she heard an awful, but familiar clicking sound. She stopped dead in her tracks, and turned, slowly. Her ears hadn't betrayed her. She knew that sound. She'd heard it many times before, even made it herself on quite a few occasions.

"Get back into the car," he said, calmly, pointing the black, and now loaded, gun directly onto her, "Please."


	3. Chapter Two

**A/N: **I apologize dearly for the long wait. This chapter took me awhile; it was harder than I expected. But I'm glad I finally pulled it off. Thanks very much for all of the positive reviews I received; you guys really encourage me to move on when I've hit a bit of a writer's block. I hope you will enjoy this as well. As always, reviews are very welcome.

**Closure  
**"Though you're still with me, I've been alone all along."

**Chapter Two**

The numbers on the car's dashboard changed from 04:06 to 04:07. Another hour had almost passed. Sara tried desperately to keep some sort of track of the road, where the hell this man was planning on taking her, but there weren't any streetlights here and the darkness was too impenetrable for her eyes to get through it. The fact that the stranger had put his gun, with which he had just so successfully forced her back into the car, within arm's reach on the passenger's seat next to him didn't help her concentrate either.

So she had gotten back into car. What choice did she have? She was unarmed, there was nowhere to flee to. But most of all, something in his expression and his voice had scared her. Had made her believe that following up his order was the best thing to do if she was going to get out of this in one piece. She couldn't put her finger on what it was exactly, though. His voice had sounded calmly and yet some sort of despair was audible in it. His eyes had nearly seemed to beg her to do what he wanted. As if _she_ was the one with the power, as if _she_ was the one deciding what was happening here and he needed the safety of a gun to make sure she didn't do anything he didn't want her to do.

It had been the combination of his near-despair and the weapon he was holding that made her step into the car again. She had worked as a CSI long enough to know that people in desperate states where capable of the most violent actions imaginable.

He stole a quick glance at her via the rear-view mirror. Was it her imagination or did a smile appear on his face at the sight of her? Once again Sara dug into her mind to find any kind of recognition, but she simply didn't know who this man was. Then why in the world did he know her so well?

She had to do something. Anything, to figure this situation out. Her psychological skills were now tested. Everything came down to her experience as a criminologist right now. She hoped with all of her heart that would be enough.

Ignoring the slight fear that Sara still caught herself to, she spoke up. "You have to help me a little bit. What do we know each other from again?"

He smiled and his eyes indicated he was drifting far away in his thoughts. "First day of college. You were headed for Criminal Law, I for English Lit. Don't you remember, honey? It was the best day of my life…" he said, absent-mindedly.

College. Was he one of her fellow students at Harvard? As far as she remembered, she had never made any real friends in college. She was always on her own and perfectly content with that.

"I don't- I mean, are you sure?" Sara said, momentarily too struck with confusion to think of something better to say.

He seemed to awake from his own memories. "Of course I am sure," he said, sounding a little irritated.

"So we were… we were good friends then?" she tried.

"We were so much more than friends. Straight from the moment we saw each other for the first time."

Sara had hoped that this conversation would make her understand the situation she was in, but the way it was going now she was as close to understanding as she was to remembering the direction of this meandering road they were travelling. Nothing he had said so far made even the slightest sense to her. She didn't recall in the least ever having been friends, let alone more than that, with an English Literature student at Harvard.

But he seemed completely sure of his himself. This confusion, this mess in her head, scared her. She couldn't afford to be confused right now. She had to be sharp, she had to stop him in whatever he was planning on doing.

"I really think you're mistaking me for someone else," she said, determinedly, looking straight at him via the mirror.

He laughed, albeit it a bit nervously. "I most certainly am not."

"You are, though. I never dated an English Literature student; I don't think I ever even spoke to one."

There was no doubt anymore now: fear and confusion was clearly visible on his face when he looked at her. Sara let out her held breath; was she breaking through to him? She couldn't yet be sure, but a small feeling of triumph she couldn't deny. This gave her courage.

"You're wrong. I'm not whoever you think I am. Let me out of this car-"

"SHUT UP!"

In a fraction of a second his hand grabbed the gun from the passenger's seat. He held it up, looking bewildered.

"Shut up, okay?! I know what I'm doing. Don't go tell me I'm wrong, because I'm NOT. I AM NOT!"

The car swung over the road, shaking both of them in their seats. Sara grabbed hold of the back rest of the passenger's seat in front in an effort not to lose her balance. She cursed at herself; she had gone too far. Her confidence had taken the best of her.

"I know who you are, who are you to tell me- I KNOW, OKAY?!" he continued.

"O-Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I won't do it anymore," she shouted over the noise of the screeching tires, clutching the back rest for dear life as she was shaken even more, "please just keep your eyes to the road and your hands on the wheel or you're going to kill us both!"

Miraculously, he listened to her. Not taking his eyes off of her, he slowly put the gun back down on the passenger's seat and then took hold of the steering wheel with both hands again.

When the car was back under his control, Sara carefully let go of the back rest. She breathed in deeply, trying to relax her pounding heart. That was a big mistake, one she couldn't make anymore; if she caused him to fire up once again this could end very ugly.

But if she didn't do anything at all, it might just as well.


	4. Chapter Three

**A/N: **Thanks very much for the encouraging reviews; they are very much appreciated. Here's the next chapter. It's still confusing, but I promise the next chapter will reveal more and at least some of the questions will be answered. This just needed to be written this way. Bear with me! Enjoy, I hope.

**Closure  
**"Though you're still with me, I've been alone all along."****

Chapter Three

"Are we there soon?"

For the first time in twenty minutes Sara ventured to speak up again. After that last outburst she was holding back on trying to convince him to talk to her. She had held her tongue and concentrated on the road instead. Dawn was slowly breaking through and she was able to make out the directions more clearly.

Although she was still completely in the dark on who this person was and why he had taken her, she had discovered a kind of pattern in his behavior. So far he hadn't been unkind to her. He seemed to care about her very much. But every time she had disobeyed him, had tried to get away or had told him what to do, he had lost his patience or panicked and taken more extreme measures. It looked almost as if he wasn't out to hurt her, if she didn't force him into it. She had to approach him more carefully from now on, she had to play along with him.

As he made the meanwhile familiar move of his eyes to the mirror to face her, it struck her that this was the first time he had done that since the outburst. Before that, he had been throwing glances her direction all the time, and now he had kept his attention merely to the car.

"Almost. Don't worry." He smiled, and steered around a corner.

Sara swallowed, but kept quiet. Mostly because she didn't have the faintest idea what to say anymore. She realized that she wasn't going to find out where 'there' was, until they'd eventually arrive. All she knew so far was that he considered the place 'their home.'

She leant her head against the window and stared into the landscape that flashed past. It was empty, it didn't seem like they were heading for any village at all. Every now and then a lonesome home was visible in the distance, but Sara hadn't spotted any 'City Limit' signs for a long time. This scared her. Because wherever he was taking her, this meant it wouldn't be easy to get away from there, let alone expect help from other people.

All of a sudden, the stranger slowed down the car slightly and then pulled off the main road, turned to the right and drove into a dirt road. Sara sat straight up, her heart starting to beat faster as she realized they were getting closer to their target.

Faintly, in the distance, she could make out the frame of a small, white-painted house. As they pulled closer towards it, she saw it was surrounded by a badly-maintained garden, with knee-length grass and weeds sprouting all sides up. It was a sad picture; a home that could most likely be very attractive, but was now looked forsaken and almost depressed.

The guy parked the car right in front of it and turned the engine off. He spun around in his seat to face her.

"We're here at last, honey. Welcome back."

Sara was about to tell him she had never seen this place before in her life, but remembered just in time that she had to play along with him. She exhaled and nodded slightly.

"Let's go inside, shall we?"

He opened his car door with his left hand and (Sara's stomach turned) grabbed the gun with his right from the passenger seat. She kept sitting completely still, not knowing what else to do. His footsteps sounded up behind her and then next to her, until he arrived at her door. He opened it.

Very slowly, Sara rose from her seat and stepped out of the car. A soft blow of wind made her shiver in her still wet clothes. She glanced under her eyelashes at his hand, which covered the gun's body tightly. Then she moved her head up and examined her surroundings. There was nothing. Just deafening silence. Complete emptiness, except for the house they were standing in front of.

A feeling was slowly creeping its way up side of her. A feeling she couldn't afford to have right now, a feeling she would have to suppress immediately. A feeling she hadn't caught herself to in a very long time, a feeling that, being the intelligent and tough person she was, she was ashamed of admitting to.

Despair.


End file.
